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“‘Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’ Once you open yourself to God, once God shines a direct light within your soul, your life becomes a journey of faith. Mysteries will seem to fill you to overflowing, but faith and prayer will help you face both the known and the unknown.”

I’m writing a church talk and in my research I came across a fabulous article about personal ministries. The author speaks of finding our own ministry, one that goes beyond assignments and becomes part of our day-to-day living, a part of our very nature and being. Part of this personal ministry involves listening to the promptings of the Holy Ghost; promptings that lead us to where God would have us serve.

In the article is a tender account of how one individual heeded just such a prompting:

“We fly quite a bit, and [for one flight] when we got our boarding passes, we had been upgraded to first class. This has never happened before, and may not again, but it was a little exciting. As I was getting on the plane, I saw to my left a young woman in military uniform. The thought immediately came to me, “You need to give her your seat.” It was quite a strong impression, and one I could not ignore. So, not being totally obedient, I went to my seat and put my bag down and sat down. I could not sit there, though, and I walked back to talk to the stewards. I told them I wanted to give my seat to someone I had seen while getting on. Then I went back to get my bag. . . . About halfway through the flight this young woman came back to my seat and thanked me. . . . She kept calling me ma’am and telling me how grateful she was for this kindness. Then she handed me a little piece of paper and walked back to her seat.

The note said, “Ma’am, I just wanted to say thank you so much! You helped me out in my hour of need. This soldier is forever thankful for your kindness. I am heading home to attend my mother’s funeral. She passed away yesterday in a car accident. I thought God left me and punished me for something, but through this He gave me an angel to help my travel. Thank you. Here is a little something that helped me out. Now I’m passing it to you.” Enclosed with the note was a little metal cross that said, “God loves you.”

The letter concludes:

I am so grateful that I listened to the Holy Ghost and acted on that prompting. I don’t know her name or where she was going. I really only know that she was a soldier. But I know that Heavenly Father knows her name and where she was going and that she was hurting. He wanted her to know that He loves her and was comforting her at this difficult time. I know that Heavenly Father loves me, too, and that He trusts me. It was such a simple thing to do. I guess that is what most service is—very simple things.”

As I continue to grow in my spiritual practice I have renewed my commitment to follow promptings, to minister as Christ did, to “to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; . . . and . . . mourn with those that mourn; . . . and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” (Mosiah 18:8–10; emphasis added.)

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There is an account in the Book of Mormon where Nephi explains why Isaiah is so hard for people to understand – specifically his people in the New World. When Nephi and his family left Jerusalem they also left behind much of the culture, and they did so on purpose. So much of Isaiah’s prophecies are centered around the culture of that day – the people, the politics, the problems.

The Bible speaks of many people willingly leaving a culture, sometimes physically, others just mentally. Abraham left Ur behind because of its idolatry and human sacrifices. Moses escaped Egypt (and was called back to it a very different man). Saul left behind a life he was fully committed to and knew in his heart was right, until that day that Christ spoke to him on the road to Damascus and he became Paul.

There will come a time when all of us, when we are ready for that step, will need to leave behind our own Jerusalem, our comfort, our way of life that no longer serves us as we try to immerse ourselves deeper into our spiritual practices. Every culture – family, community, state, nation, race – carries something that we may need to sacrifice, something we may need let go in order to progress to develop a deeper relationship with God and with ourselves.

We may need to stand alone. Friends and family may not understand at first. They may never understand but the risk is worth it. We are worth it. YOU are worth it.

Devotional exercise: let’s sit in stillness and honestly evaluate our habits that may derive from a culture we were raised in. Is there one thing we can leave behind? Are we ready to leave our own Jerusalem to find that New World that God has waiting for us?

Part of the beauty of creating intimacy with God is arriving at a point where we take responsibility for ourselves: our actions, our mistakes, our happiness, our relationship with God and with others. This is a quote from theweek.com (reprinted from the New Yorker) from a woman who’s husband told her he wanted a divorce. (You can read the entire essay here.)

“I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “the End of Suffering.” I’d finally managed to exile the voices in my head that told me my personal happiness was only as good as my outward success, rooted in things that were often outside my control. I’d seen the insanity of that equation and decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.”

As you read the entire essay you identify with her open admission that there were good days AND bad days and just how she got through those bad days.

When we commit to any course of action or change we will always be hit with the, “Okay, what now? How do I get through this pain/boredom/laziness/anger/rage?” I like how she described this “non-negotiable” understanding with herself. As a writer who wants to be a successful writer I can relate with the non-negotiable part of a contract I’ve already made with myself, and it’s the non-negotiable part, the remembering that I’ve already made a decision about sitting down and writing every day. Exiling the voices in our heads is not complicated, it just takes commitment, a remembering of a decision we made to do so back when the idea was much more exciting and doable than on a day that is really, really difficult.

We can find happiness, find an intimacy with God, find a way through a pain that seems like it will last forever but is really only temporary. It is putting one foot in front of the other day after day, week after week even after the fanfare of our contract has dwindled.

Devotional exercise: write 3 things/experiences/relationships/people that you are currently holding responsible for your unhappiness. How will you take ownership of these? Commit today to exile those voices and move forward to be happy in your own skin.